Published
i know how i feel about it:
oklahoma city hospital offers treat as a reward
health
by susan simpson
published: october 10, 2009
cookie monster would feel right at home at community hospital in southwest oklahoma city.
that’s because patients are offered fresh-baked treats each evening, as the smell of chocolate chip cookies wafts through the halls.
:icon_roll
Sorry to say, but my hospital has a similar program. Volunteers do the baking, and distribute the warm from the oven cookies after checking to see which pts can have them. I get the "warm fuzzy" aspect of it, but I would rather concentrate on bragging rights to the excellent care provided, not the yummy snacks.
That's fine in my mind. It's volunteers doing it, and they're not baked on the unit for everyone to smell. They're checking who can have them.
Whopps, look like I won't be hired at this hospital! I can't bake for the life of me, so all the cookies would be burnt, no matter what I do. *hehe*Not every patient can eat cookies due to their diet restrictions/diabetic/etc. What do those patients get, then?
Free diet ginger ale for everyone!
Oh wait...
That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
Lord, please rescue us from the well-meaning but clueless corporate types who have confused hospitals with the Hilton..........
If we wanted to be waitresses, we could have just waltzed in off the street instead of going up to our hairlines in debt, pulling all-nighters, and putting the rest of our lives on hold in order to attend nursing school for two or four years.
I can't think of anything bad enough to call the numskulls who thought this up. I'm all about making patients feel better, but you couldn't pay me enough to make working in such an environment worth the indignity.
They better take away my nursing degree, I didn't graduate from a nursing school that taught baking. Get the kitchen to do it, get the aids to do it, but not the nurse who is getting paid 20+ per hour and has plenty of other things to do...this is about the stupidest thing I have heard since word about hospitals trying to be more hotel like...if you are well enough to rent a movie on the television and eat a fresh baked cookie then you need to be discharged.
We used to make Otis Spunkmeyer cookies at an assisted living facility I directed (for a short stint). They come frozen in individual cookie balls, are put on the tray, slid into the special oven, and taken out when they beeped. The process is really quick and mindless. The cookies were made in each household and it was the responsibility of the nurses, med aids, and aids... whomever was available. It wasn't horrible because it's such rote behavior, essentially no different than filling water jugs or passing evening snacks to the diabetics. Now, with that said, I don't know that it's the most resourceful use of nurses, facilities, and monies, but I also don't think it's as degrading and time consuming as it sounds. JMHO.
Virgo_RN, BSN, RN
3,543 Posts
Look at the photo. The title states: Registered nurse Joanna Christian bakes cookies for patients at Community Hospital.
This is degrading and only serves to contribute to the public misperception of what Registered Nurses do.